Growing Your Warm Market Business | Justin Stoddart

There are two primary buckets from which every agent ought to be pulling consistent, warm referrals.

Show Notes

3 principles and 3 tactics for real estate agents to stay on top during challenging times.

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Justin Stoddart

What is Think Bigger Real Estate?

The road to success for real estate agents is well-marked. The road to significance is not. Here, we help you to Think Bigger than just your business. We inspire you to seek success AND significance, income AND impact. We do that by interviewing the biggest thinkers and highest achievers in the real estate industry, extracting the secrets to having it all.

Justin Stoddart 0:02
So the big question is this. How do we those of us in the real estate industry with crazy amounts of ambition? How do we think bigger than the building of our own empires? How do we simultaneously see success and significance, income and impact? My name is Justin Stoddard. And this is the Think bigger real estate show. Hey, what's up everybody, Justin Stoddart, here. Today, we are going to talk about growing your warm market business, very specifically how there are two critical buckets from which you should be getting warm referrals. Thrilled to be with you today. Again, this is going to be a brief and action packed episode. So excited to be with you, I'm going to you should be able to see my screen right now. And so we're just going to get moving here. For those of you that are listening to the podcast after the fact, just know this, that the entire episode, with the things that I'll be sharing will be available, streamed both the LinkedIn to YouTube and inside of the successful real estate agents Facebook group, so be sure and get it there. Now, I want to emphasize here, very, very quickly the importance of where we're at right now, assuming you're watching this in current time, it is the first week of October. And that means its fourth quarter. Now when you look at this picture here, you'll see that I have a gentleman with his hand up holding the number four for those of you that are football fans, you recognize that this is oftentimes kind of a statement that players will make saying it's on it's the fourth quarter, we got one quarter left, and we are leaving it all on the field. I want you to think of your business like that, sometimes, and I won't point any fingers. But this time of year is when people start to coast. Now with the market that we've had this year, my guess is you don't have space to coast, in order to reach your goals like you really do need to be all in like you're a little behind right now. And it's time to go all in on finishing out this year strong. And there's something even more important than finishing out the just the year strong. What's critical, is the fact that what you're doing right now will pay you in 2023. So whether you care to admit it or not, you're actually already in 2023 As far as what's going to hit your bank account in most all cases. So there's all kinds of reasons for us to pick up the pace, go all in and really be focused on finishing strong. Some of you will recognize this gentleman here, his name is Vince Lombardi, the winningest coach in NFL history. In fact, the very championship trophy that today players hold up when they win the Super Bowl is the Vince Lombardi trophy. He's that famous. He's that well known as being a champion. The interesting thing about Vince is he didn't necessarily talk about championships, what he talked about were the very fundamentals, the very first day of practice, he would show up and he would invite all who were listening, all who were there at practice, he would explain to them about their shoes about about there about what a football was, he says, gentlemen, this is a football. And then he'd go through the very basic building blocks of how to tackle how to throw how to catch stuff that you wouldn't think that you would normally tell a very talented, even Hall of Fame football player of which he coached many of them. And yet he knew that the fundamentals were the building blocks to greatness. So as we look at really hitting the end of the year strong and really setting us up for a great 2023 We have to keep in mind the fact that the fundamentals matter more than ever. And in a fast paced market where everybody wants to buy and everybody wants to sell, you can get away with some sloppy play. But when it comes down to it's a super competitive market, and buyers are a little worried about rates and what that's done to their buying power, and sellers are a little worried about what has happened to their equity. All right, we have to have very strong fundamentals, we have to go back to the basics that got us here. So very similar to Vince Lombardi. I'm going to be inviting you to come with me today on what are some of the very fundamentals of getting and growing your warm market business.

Justin Stoddart 4:37
I'm going to start with this premise that I believe is that warm referrals are better than cold leads. In other words, if I were to present you with two options, somebody's calling you who you knew they knew you and they said do you have time to come list my home versus a list of 50 names that you had to go through and identify warm up hope that they didn't get mad at you hang up on you or call you a dirty name. And eventually firm from that 50 Find a cold, find somebody who wants to do business with you. My guess is you would always take the warm referral that doesn't only does it take less time, but it takes less emotional energy to deal with that, in fact, it's quite uplifting. Okay, so the only reason oftentimes why people why they don't do only cold leads, right. The only problem are sorry, warm referrals. The only reason why they don't only focus on warm referrals, is quite simply that they run out of them before they reach their biggest goals. Right? If your warm referrals got you to your biggest goals, you would have no need of cold leads, right? Am I right? Or am I right? I think I'm right, I think you would agree with me. So that then leaves us with two options, right? If we are running out of warm referrals before reaching our biggest goals, which I would say that probably most people are in that spot here at the end of 2022, you got two options. Number one is just lower your goals, right? That's the easy fix is let's just let's just pretend that I actually only wanted to produce here. Okay, that's one way to go about it. If you've been around me for long, you know that personal growth is synonymous with happiness. And so to give yourself a total out, is not a fast path to having a very happy and fulfilling life. Okay, so I don't think that's a good option. The other option is to pursue cold leads, you might be saying, Justin, what if I don't want to do either of those, I'm not willing to lower my goals number one. And number two, I'm not really eager about picking up the phone and calling a bunch of strangers right now for some of you, it's like, that's no big deal. Man, I do that all day long, great good for you. There's a group of people who don't want to do that. And I'm gonna say, there's a group of people that don't have to do that, because I'm gonna teach you the second bucket today, that many of you are unfamiliar with. Right? Many of you are familiar with the first bucket we're gonna talk about. The second bucket is one that you either aren't thinking of, or one that you haven't gotten very proficient at. We're going to talk about that. So some background on me, for those that don't know me, I'm a former land developer, high end home builder. This is one of the homes that we built, we built a number of homes that we're super proud of. And it was a great experience for me to really figure out how to develop a warm market business ultimately decided that my passion was not developing land, it was developing people. It was not building homes, it was building businesses. So now I get to do that, that, that becomes my full focus. I also have a podcast called Think bigger real estate, some of you are listening to that. Now, I also have a book called The upstream model. Now for those that want to learn more about what we do, you can go to our website, which is Think bigger, are E, like real estate, think bigger rt e.com, there, you'll actually be given the opportunity to create to identify what is your, what we call your referral score. I'll probably reference this later on as well. But your referral score will tell you in a matter of 60 seconds, it'll tell you how much how much dollars in commission dollars are untapped and available for you to claim inside your sphere. I'll also show you not only that, but how much opportunity is likely available inside of your professional network. So super valuable tool, it will take you 60 seconds. But the the information insight that you'll get from that will be wildly helpful. So you can just go to think bigger r e.com. Click on Find out your referral score. And it'll walk you right through it very simple questionnaire. And we'll be able to get you some some great insight that will really be helpful for you. And finishing out q4 strong. Another insight on me is I'm a family man, these are my my favorite seven people on the planet, my lovely wife and our six children. So if you if you don't know that about me just know that at the core of everything that I teach is not only to help you build a successful business, but a significant life as well. What good is a life that is only filled with professional accomplishments when you have nobody to enjoy them with? On the last episode, you've maybe heard me talk a little bit or maybe even rant a little bit about Tom Brady. How I feel like the goat the greatest player of all time, is making a terrible decision right now in the way he's not prioritizing his family. I won't go into that any further. But just know that success and significance is what I'm after those that work with me

Justin Stoddart 9:33
those that follow me know this and know that my everything that I'm going to share with you has that in mind, how do I not only show up great with my clients, but how do I show up great with those I love the most. All right back to the two buckets. This was the promise I'm going to teach you what are the two buckets and how do you begin to pull warm referrals from each of those buckets. Okay. bucket number one is your personal sphere. I'm not going to spend a ton of time here, because this is very common knowledge of how to go about getting business from your sphere. Okay, I will give you a couple clues a couple insights here in just a minute. But this is one that when we think of our market, typically this is the only bucket people think of. Sometimes when people think two buckets, well, it's warm market, it's cold market. And I'm here to tell you, there's two warm market buckets. Right? If you don't want to do cold market, you don't have to, if you learn, the two buckets that I'm going to teach you, number one is personal sphere. Now, what I shared with you about your referral score, that if you go to my website, you'll be able to actually access that and get that number for yourself. But here's a hint of what that looks like is that your database ought to be producing at 10%. In transactions per year, what I mean by that if you have 300 people in your database, you ought to be getting 30 deals per year. Now times that by let's say it's $10,000 per commission, that's $300,000 that are being left on the table. Okay, that's a glimpse, it'd be really interesting for you to go fill out and find out your referral score, because it will tell you how much money is available for you to go access. So that is bucket number one. I'll go into a little more depth on this here in a minute. But let's jump to what is bucket number two. bucket number two is not your sphere, it is your professional network. Now some of you are probably watching this on LinkedIn. And you're recognize the fact that like, why I'm surrounded by people that I know from a business level, not necessarily from a personal standpoint. And if I were to send them my newsletter and pop by with cute little gifts, they'd be like, Who are you wait, what is this? Right, it might not be that helpful for them and therefore for you. So just know that whatever you've learned when it comes to your sphere, it's not just that these sit in two different buckets. And you do the same thing to both of them. There's actually a different strategy by which you you access warm referrals from your professional network as you as different strategy in accessing referrals from your professional network. Okay, so personal sphere, professional network, two different buckets, and two different strategies with some similar common philosophies that we're going to go through. Okay. But your professional network could very well include some seven major industries. In fact, let me share with you here really quickly, I'm going to share with you a couple of insights. Back let's do this I'm going to draw for you here. So for again, those of you that are just listening, know that you can access my drawings, if you think that they're good, but the information will be will be fantastic. So bucket number one we've already discussed, right? bucket number two, I want you to think in this way. There are certain professionals in the marketplace right now who are having conversations with their clients. And in those conversations, they're identifying that their clients are going to be needing a real estate agent next. Okay. Let me give you some examples of who those professionals are or what are the life events that may trigger these professionals being involved in their lives. Okay. It's called the DS right? We have, I'm gonna write them out here divorce, unfortunately, I'll get that one out of the way because I don't like that one. Diapers. That's a fun one. We've had a lot of those in our house. Okay. Diamonds. Okay. That's a fun one. People getting married. We've got death. That's not so fun. Okay, so those are four of the DS, right? Where when stuff like this is happening in their life, oftentimes people are, there's certain professionals around them that are helping them, insurance agents, lenders, financial advisors, proper trust and probate attorneys. There's again, there's certain professionals whose whose careers are built around, or at least interacting with people when they're at these stages. So if those professionals happen to know that their clients are gonna be needing real estate, how nice would it be for you to be involved in that conversation at that moment? Now, let me share with you something else here. We were to build a wheel

Justin Stoddart 14:27
of the people who would fit into that criteria, right? Uh, we'll have people who have categories of industries, I'm gonna list out a few of them here. Okay, we obviously have real estate now you might be saying, well, I'm real estate, how am I gonna get like referrals from myself? You aren't but there are potential referrals from commercial real estate agents from brokers, also from other agents in other markets, okay. So real estate, will say lending now this could be mortgage brokers, this could be banks, this could be credit you Union's attorneys, right? This could be probate trust, bankruptcy, family attorneys, real estate attorneys, right there number of attorneys who when they're dealing with their clients, they're in the know that a real estate transaction is coming. There's financial advisors. There's insurance agents. Sharon's could could include could include property casualty insurance, it could include life insurance, it could include health insurance, right? We have property managers. And then we have accounting. So these are the seven industries. And this is just a start, you guys, it's just a start this is to get you started. And keep on within each one of these with accounting, their CPAs. There's bookkeepers, right. There's tax advisers, all these professionals, whether you like it or not have some contact with real estate. And when they are properly incentivized, they can be bringing up your name regularly. And I'm not talking about giving illegal kickbacks or kickbacks at all, or lunches or golf or all that that's the old model that takes too much time. Right when I'm talking about is very specifically, the value to their business and to their clients that make them make it very easy for them to bring you up all the time. Okay. So that's one way to think about this second bucket, who's in your professional network, who is what I call upstream effect. Let me go back and share with you a bit more about this second bucket. Oftentimes, some of you have seen this before, you have agents that are all fishing out of the same stream as same fishing hole. Heads, it's very crowded, right? And it seems to be that there's more people with poles in their hand, and there are fish in the water. And that can be challenging. Well, if you recognize that and are okay with that, then by all means, keep doing it, right. But if you're like, No, I want more, then what happens is those professionals that we just talked about on my previous slides, become what we call upstream partners, these upstream partners are people who, again, all day every day, they're having conversations with their clients, and they're uncovering or are a few questions away from uncovering the fact that their clients are going to be needing a real estate agent next. And so why are they not referring you? Well, it's because if you've showed up in their life at all, it's been very much with your hand out. Okay. When done correctly, this small database of professional partners, who, by the way, are less work and less expense can create a large number of referrals. It's like having a pipeline of referrals. Okay, pipeline of free, steady flowing referrals. Okay, we love pipelines. And that golden, those golden eggs that you're pursuing in the form of commissions come to you in the form of, of a golden goose, right, a golden goose who can send you warm referrals all the time. Okay. Another name for a pipeline. Okay. So how do we then go about getting referrals from those two buckets? I want you to think about this mind and heart. Okay. So, in real estate, we talk a lot about location, location, location, right? We need to have, like, we need to help our people buy property in great locations, right, and real estate is at the center of that conversation. Well, similarly, we need to own location, location, location inside the mind, of our clients, we need to own mind share, we need to be ever present in their mind. Okay, that's the first key to all of this is being present in their mind of them not forgetting us, there is a 0% chance that somebody will use you on their next real estate transaction. If

Justin Stoddart 19:15
they have forgotten you, zero, right, there is no way that they will call you or ask you or choose you if they forgotten you. So all too often our businesses don't die because we aren't great service providers, is because they die in obscurity. People simply just don't know who we are. And they've forgotten or they've forgotten who we are. So it becomes our responsibility. It's not theirs to remember us. It's not their responsibility. It's our responsibility to remind them. So we've got to be present in their mind. Okay, what does that look like? That looks like being present in their inbox. That means being present in their newsfeed. Okay, there are some very simple tools that we coach and teach agents to have that allow them to be ever present in people's minds. Now, if you or just simply grabbing something off the internet and sending it out. Here's the reality is that people aren't necessarily correlating that with you, unless it's coming in your voice unless you've got some way to customize and personalize that there's a chance that it's just going to be another email that they're not going to open because it doesn't sound like you, right? It doesn't come from you, it comes from some service that you've employed, which not everybody appreciates, okay? So being mind full, having their mind be full of you. Okay? The second one is heart, owning a piece of their heart. Okay, what I mean by this is there's one of the stickiest opportunities that we have to remain in someone's life is to do good to them, to care about them to reach out to them. Okay, this is more personal contact. Right? We teach annual wealth reviews, we teach client events, there's a number of things that we teach that we have very streamlined systems, you simply plug and play into your business, and allows you to show up in a very personal level. And we have social media system set out to where we actually tell you what the best strategy is not to be heard, but to hear. Because when you hear, then people want to hear you. So there's there's some some interesting ways that we can go about this, but but think about the the age old adage, that people don't care how much you know, and I'm sure you know a lot about real estate, they don't care until they know how much you care about them. Right? They don't know how much they don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care. So you have to own a piece of their heart as well, there has to be an actual relationship. Otherwise, you're simply playing that I hope I call on the right day game. Right? I hope that that, that they that I show up on the newsfeed on the right day. But if there's a relationship there, they will remember that and it becomes some of the stickiest ways to remain in people's lives is to actually have a piece of their heart as well. Okay. Now, a couple of the tools of how we do this. Number one, we need to be able to get their attention. Okay, if we don't have their attention, then nothing else really matters, right? They've forgotten us. Following attention, we need to get them to engage with us. It's not just enough for them to watch us but to engage with us. When you think about all the emails you're sending out, the individual contact you're sending out is that leading to engagement and more importantly, a conversation, because as my mentor, Sharon Srivatsa teaches over and over again, is that all conversion comes on the heels of conversation. If you're not getting into conversations with people about what you know, and about what you want to know about them, then it won't matter, it won't work. So my strong encouragement would be for you to not just be focused on getting people's attention by filling up their newsfeed in their inbox, but to really creating those in such a way that they create a conversation and give you opportunities to converse with people. Because if not, then you might be wasting a lot of time. So we're gonna want to wrap up with it with a couple of key points here really quickly. Number one key point is that it is the fourth quarter, now is the time for you to get ahead, not just ahead of your competition, while a lot of other people are kind of coasting towards the end of the year. But now is the time for you to set yourself up for a great, a great 2023 Okay, so now it's go time. And I would argue that if you get to the end of this period where the markets doing a little bit of an exhale and you don't have key systems in place,

Justin Stoddart 23:45
then shame on you. You are going to be upset with yourself because you remember when the market was crazy and you didn't have time to work on anything in your business, all you could do is work in your business. Now you have some time to work on your business Don't waste this moment implement the systems in your business that will make a big impact upon you and upon your quality of life and about the the quantity of people who you can serve at a high level on a thank you for tuning in today for listen to this broadcast. This podcast about how to dominate q4 how to grow your warm market. And my final request is always is go think bigger. Thanks for joining me today folks. If you enjoyed this episode that I have a very special invitation for you. I have created a private Facebook community called successful real estate agents where the focus is going beyond success having both a successful business and a significant life. If you're not yet a member. Go sign up now.

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